


Today Tomorrow Yesterday

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 16:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14048295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Short angsty fics leading up to the finale. Speculation, rumour, imagination.





	1. Today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully POV

Imagining what her brain looks like is easy. Imagining what it looks like being compressed and controlled by another’s mind is something else. The intensity of Jackson’s thoughts intruding on hers feels like a birth, a squeezing through, lit by pain and relief in equal measure. She breathes and tries not to laugh at the absurdity of running through Lamaze exercises whilst listening to her only birthed child speaking inside her mind. Spooky Mulder ain’t got nothing on Spooky Scully. Sceptical Scully has long since left the building. She can hear her boy, their boy like he’s giving her a slide presentation.

Click. “This is the park across from my motel room.”

She sees the green oval thronged on three sides by dark cypresses, spreading their leafy limbs wide, as though they are gathering to protect the children who might play there. She blinks away the image.

Click. “And this is my new outfit.” There’s a note in his voice so much like Mulder. She can see him running his hands from his chest to his knees, theatrically. She can see the cargo pants and his grey shirt and khaki jacket like Mulder’s. It would be comical if his sudden appearance in her brain’s furled passageways wasn’t so urgent.

Click. “Are you coming?” There’s something childish in his voice now. Pulling on her conscience like he used to pull on her hair.

But his visions – her visions - are blood and thunder; they are death. Icy spots of trepidation leave a chilling trail through her veins.

“Yes,” she says and she hears Mulder stir next to her.

Black fills her mind, floating gracefully down behind her eyes like ink spilling into water. The fading of the visions are kinder than their arrival. It’s a gentle cutting of the cord, leaving her head numb.

She rubs at her temples, hungry, unsettled, empowered. Mulder’s fingers find hers and she hears the pop of his lips opening. “Sorry,” she says, before he can ask why she’s awake. His radar is never offline for long, always sending out signals, searching for when she might need his comfort, his strength. For a man so guided by his own quest he has always been able to navigate her worries and fears, however quietly she holds them to her chest.

“I could hear you,” he says. “Your mind clicking.” He rolls over and pushes her hair away from her face. His thumb remains on her chin, the gentlest of touches yet stabilising her.

She pushes away the vestiges of Jackson’s visions, pushes out the knowledge of what might be about to be delivered, pushes away the pit of fear that sits, bunched up and jagged inside. She pulls Mulder in. Where there was an insistent pulse in her head, that same energy is now vibrating through her blood and white heat flares from every pore.

Mulder senses it, his lips encasing hers, his body folding around her. “What is this, Scully?”

But there is no name for this. This is today. Tomorrow is where their world unstitches and old wounds prolapse.

Their joint heat sets the sheets aflame. She rolls in the fire with him and it is cleansing.

“Fuck,” he whispers from the base of his throat and her cry escapes with a hiss too. “Are you okay, Scully?”

She doesn’t speak, merely clings to him today. Keeping their flesh fused for as long as she is able.

This is today. But tomorrow is coming. And then there will only be yesterdays.


	2. Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder POV

Since she told him, Mulder has tried not to watch her too closely, too intensely. But it’s hard not to be caught up in the covert drama of something so quiet, so invisible. New life unfolding inside, so tiny yet so unutterably powerful. There is a peace to be found in thinking now. Where his mind has so often been filled with the dark and the grotesque, he now finds it a soothing place to spend the moments digesting her news, their future. Her miracle. Their responsibility.

He thinks of tomorrow and the way it lures you forward in life, a Siren call to the unknown. So much of their life together has been spent following the song. They have witnessed the arcane, the phenomenal, the horrific. And once, they witnessed the miraculous. But then tomorrow came and took it from them. He wants to hold on to today for as long as he can, however irresistible the pull of the future is.

She receives the visions on a regular basis. He hears the change in her breathing when they come. She doesn’t describe much but he knows they’re bad, apocalyptic. He wants to peel back the layers of hair and skin and bone, to reach in and rip them out so they don’t leave scars but it’s futile. Despite what she thinks, what she’s said, Scully is the strong one. She is the one thrust into this life with him, the one who has endured. And she will continue to do that. To bear north, and, he knows now, always with him at her side. What she sees, has seen, will see is out of his control. Just like tomorrow.

“There’s not much time,” she says, pulling back the sheet. “We should go.” Her soft tank is ruffed up at the waist and he sees the slight swell of her stomach. His hand is there before he can stop himself, her skin warm and welcome under his touch.

She covers his hand with hers and leans back into him. “It’s too early, Mulder.”

“Quickening can be as early as the first trimester.” He nuzzles her neck feeling the swish of her hair against his cheek. The heat from her stomach increases and he kisses her, sensing something building within her, within him. It’s only the gentle flutter beneath their joint hands that stops them both. Their mouths part with an audible pop. He has an inappropriate urge to hum the Twilight Zone tune but Scully’s face is all wonder and awe, tears gathering.

“This can’t be, Mulder.”

But again, a movement, a thousand butterfly wings opening and closing. He feels the pull of a smile and a stupid line. “It be, Scully.” Dipping to kiss her navel he whispers to his offspring, “You are. Tomorrow, you will be.” Then he looks up at Scully with teary eyes and smiles. “This is Scully, your mother. She’s pretty cool, kid. You’re a lucky Bean.”

Her laugh in his ears, her hand in his hair, their baby against his cheek. He lets himself sink into the gentlest of places, one where there is only the now.

“We have to go, Mulder.” She pulls him away. He knows she is right. They have to go. They have to find William. Protect him. Because without him there is no tomorrow. For them. For anyone.


	3. Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William's POV

They came yesterday. They came to save him. They tried. But yesterday is gone. And all that is here today is all that will be here tomorrow.

The world was ending, he saw it. And so had she. The woman who was his birth mother. Growing up he had flashes of this woman but he hadn’t realised who she was. He did know she was tough and smart and caring. He saw into her heart as well as her mind. The world was ending but she knew how to save it. She knew it was about him. But that was yesterday.

The man they called Skinner is dead. The man who claimed to be his father, the fucking black-lunged liar, is dead. Brianna and Sarah are fine. Will be fine. Yesterday was blood and fire. Today is a charcoal calm. What colour will tomorrow be?

The road ahead is grey and winding. Rain splatters the screen and the wipers scrape it away, cutting the silence with a rhythmic low groan. Wind whips through the dark branches of the trees that line either side. An audience to their escape. Escape to where? Mulder drives. Scully sleeps in the back, face obscured, hands covering her middle. Jackson knows she is pregnant. He sensed it yesterday. He started yesterday alone, sure that it would be his last day on earth. By the end of the day he had a family again, he was alive. He hasn’t worked out how to feel about it yet. But there are lots of tomorrows to understand.

For now, he needs to process yesterday. The day the world changed.


End file.
